Leaked document puts spotlight on Alito
Associate Justice Samuel Alito mostly avoided the limelight for 16 years, even while being arguably the most conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court. But that low profile is changing after he authored a draft opinion that would overturn the landmark abortion-rights ruling Roe v. Wade.
The opinion, if finalized, promises to be one of the most momentous in U.S. history, toppling a 1973 decision that has since allowed tens of millions of women to legally end pregnancies. The leaked draft also raises questions about Supreme Court precedents that protect other rights, including same-sex marriage and contraception.
And it could catapult Alito, once best known for mouthing “not true” during President Barack Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address, to a new level of prominence: despised by some, revered by others.
Supporters describe Alito, 72, as a man whose core beliefs haven’t changed much since he was tapped in 2005 by President George W. Bush to succeed the retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Alito’s confirmation the following year instantly shifted the court to the right.
“He’s known from the start that he would never be accepted by kind of the mainstream liberal society and he’s never tried for that kind of acceptance,” said Alexander Volokh, a former Alito law clerk who teaches at Emory University
School of Law. “So he’s basically proud of staking out what he believes in as a conservative opinion.”
What’s changed since his appointment is the court has grown more conservative around him, giving Alito the votes as well as the seniority to write far-reaching opinions.